Virtual University Holds Real Graduation

June 01, 1998|By MATTHEW HAY BROWN; Courant Staff Writer

NEW BRITAIN — Connecticut's virtual university held an actual graduation Sunday, bringing together the Class of 1998 for the first time.

``A strange thing is happening today to the students of Charter Oak State College,'' President Merle W. Harris told the 375 candidates for associate's and bachelor's degrees at the school's 25th commencement exercises. ``Since they are learning on their own, they don't get to meet each other,'' Harris said. ``They don't sit together in class. They don't root for the Charter Oak State College football team.''

Indeed, while traditional colleges get the introductions out of the way during freshman orientation, Charter Oak -- a pioneering distance- learning institution designed to allow adults to pursue degrees while managing jobs and family -- held a reception after graduation so students and faculty finally could meet.

Harris handled the introductions. During the ceremony, held at Central Connecticut State University's Welte Hall, she described the class of 1998: students ranged in age from 23 to 73; the average age was 40. They earned credits through testing, distance learning, and portfolio review. One graduate spent 16 years working toward the degree; 14 enrolled in 1998. Some worked toward bachelor's degrees while also pursuing graduate degrees elsewhere.

Commencement speaker William J. Cibes Jr., chancellor of the Connecticut State University system, said the ability of Charter Oak students to persevere in a non-traditional educational program while managing careers and families makes them ``uniquely qualified to succeed'' in a world to be defined by economic and communications revolutions demanding constant training and retraining.

``It is essential that every worker also be a learner,'' Cibes said. ``The opportunities you have seized serve as a foundation for the learning that must continue.''

In commemoration of its 25th anniversary, the college conferred its first-ever honorary doctorate on Eileen S. Krauss, chairwoman of Fleet Bank Connecticut. The D'Amato Graduate Studies Award, for an alumnus who has continued studies after graduation, was awarded to Andrea Lippincott of Torrington, a 1995 graduate now pursuing a master's degree in education.

More than 40 percent of Charter Oak graduates go on to graduate school. Alumni hold advanced degrees from such universities as Columbia, Harvard and Yale.